• by Pat LaPointe , Op-Ed Contributor, August 10, 2010

I'm hearing more and more "dashboard bashing" these days.  Seems that many have tried to implement them, and then drawn the conclusion that the view isn't worth the climb. I've even been inside companies where you cannot even say "dashboard" in front of senior executives for fear of them throwing you out of the room.  Likewise, I've been inside companies and heard things like "Dashboards are easy.  We have hundreds of them."

Having "written the book" on marketing dashboards several years ago, I think I own part of this problem.  And I confess that there are far fewer comprehensive dashboards in use within global 1000 marketing organizations than I thought there would be by now. In short, it seems it was a good idea in concept, but it just hasn't "stuck" within most companies.  Why?

Well for starters, dashboard design and implementation tends to get delegated down the hierarchy and get treated like campaign management or marketing automation tools. It's a bit paradoxical, but if CMOs want an insight-generating dashboard that saves them time, they need to put more time into nurturing its birth and evolution. EVERY successful dashboard implementation I've seen (and yes, there are a few) shares a common foundation of senior management attention and high expectations. Without that, they are born of a thousand compromises and arrive neutered of their value.

Second, they are set up to fail by unrealistic expectations of resources required.  Sure the software to run dashboards is getting much cheaper all the time, but the effort to gather, align, and interpret data is significant.  Not to mention the time required to train the staff how to USE the dashboard to THINK differently about the business than they did before.  After all, if your dashboard doesn't offer the prospect of causing people to think differently, why do it -- when you can just continue to rely on the existing mélange of reports flying around the building.

Third, there is pressure to execute in Excel in the belief that it will be easier and less expensive.  In reality, the limitations this imposes undermine the potential to grab people's imagination and draw them into interacting with data in new ways.  The users can't sense anything different from the reports they current get. In short, penny-wise and pound-foolish.

And finally, many companies start with metrics that CAN be measured today (the pragmatist approach) instead of envisioning the spectrum of things that SHOULD be measured (the visionary approach) and forcing some amount of new learning exploration right from the start.  Without this stretch exercise, many dashboards are started with no prospect of new information, and therefore no compelling reason for anyone to take the time to learn to use them.

So to sum up what we've learned, I'd say if you're looking for great insight without expense, stay away from dashboards.  You'll be disappointed.  But don't burn your bridges behind you.  After you've searched far and wide for true insight-generating solutions that meet the "good" and "cheap" criteria, you may just arrive back at the reality that insight is derived through dedicated effort over time.  And while the current generation of dashboard software options are slick and inexpensive, they won't perform the most important transformations for you: the process, skill, and culture ones.